My father does love me, after all!
That encouraged him, so he dipped into his sportula and took out a fig.
Passersby did not so much as glance at them; two Jews sitting in the street, even if they were ripping each other apart, were not a cause of any interest. Yet something major had happened, Uri considered: his father had just reconciled with his son.
“Did he say when he would give it back?”
“It doesn’t matter. What’s more important for you is to figure out how you are going to persist.”
His father must be aware that he would rather stay home.
“Never let yourself become stuck-up,” Joseph said. “Even if you know better than others, keep quiet about it. Better for people to think that you are stupid. They hate you anyway, so don’t give them any reason to show it.”
It was the voice of old times, when he had still seen clearly, and his father had treated him as a friend.
They chewed silently.
“It’s a big thing, getting the chance to go to Jerusalem,” said Joseph. “That is something I shall certainly never do.”
Uri did not dare sleep, he was afraid he would not wake in time; but he must have dropped off anyway, because his father shook him awake.
His first thought was the tessera, which he must not forget to hand over to his father, since it could be transferred, but his father muttered that he had already passed it on the previous evening. Uri clutched at his neck: the tessera was not there. Then a memory drifted back of those hours before he had gone to bed: he had handed over the lead token as if he were making a last will and testament.
As he tugged on his loincloth under his tunic in the dark, the thought running through his head was that the tessera was worth more without him than with him.
His father draped his gown over him. Uri protested, but his father squeezed his shoulder. It was a seamless, rectangular outer garment of cloth with a blue braided tassel dangling in approved fashion at each of the four corners. Uri had not owned a gown before; Joseph would get another for himself. If he could spare the money.
Outside, they dipped their feet in the brass bowl, dried them, splashed a bit of water onto themselves, or rather onto their clothes, then, bowing to the southeast, recited a Sh’ma. Uri did not take the teffilin off his forehead and set it back on the ground, but wound it around his left hand, after which Joseph placed his right hand on Uri’s head by way of a blessing. They stood like that for a moment and then Joseph went back in the house and pulled back the curtain over the entrance. Uri looked at the curtain, touched the mezuzah affixed to the door post; tears sprang into his eyes, but he quickly turned away and set off.
I am going to Jerusalem, after all. To Him in His Land.
He tried to be happy.
There were five standing in front of old Simeon’s house; they were purple in the moonlight. Barely had Uri reached them when they were joined by a seventh.
“I will be your leader,” said a tall, middle-aged man. “Matthew’s my name. I live in Ostia. To date I have taken five delegations to Jerusalem. You must do whatever I tell you to.”
The six of them murmured consent.
Matthew then handed out the packages lying by the house. He said this was the community’s gift and reminded them emphatically that anything durable would have to be given back on their return, so they should take care. The cloth sacks were not large or especially heavy. Uri tapped his and felt some sort of jug, then rounder forms, fruit perhaps, and a matzo biscuit cracked between his fingers.
“I have the money for travel expenses,” Matthew announced. “I’ll be the one who pays at the inns, at customs, for wagons, and for the ship. When we get back, I shall have to account for everything, and anything that is left, I shall have to hand back.”
It was on the tip of Uri’s tongue to ask who would be carrying the loads of money that had been collected by the Jews of Rome for the feast, and to whom they’d be delivered, but he swallowed the question. The others did not ask either.
Maybe they do not know quite how much money they were delivering, but without any doubt it was a huge fortune. Worth slaughtering them for.
Matthew slung his sack on his back and set off. The rest picked up their luggage and followed.
They went out through the gate; the two guards blinked sleepily after them before locking the gate again.
Beside him strong, seasoned men stepped with buoyant strides. He was the youngest, the least worthy, the weakest. How long would his legs hold up?
Being a lefty, he carried his sack on his right shoulder, bouncing it up from time to time to get a sense of its weight and to guess whether it was him carrying the money. It would have to come to hundreds of talenta, and that would have to weigh a great deal. His sack was not heavy, though, so he could not be carrying it.
Were they going to take turns?
Had it been divided up between them?
Lifting his sack, he estimated that it could not weigh more than thirty Roman libra — twenty pounds, say. Sixty to seventy-five pounds was the weight of the food that he and his father used to lug back home as the ration issued on his tessera. He wondered how many sesterces might fit into a sack, or rather how many denarii, or silver pennies, each of which was worth four sesterces? Say they were carrying a total of twenty thousand denarii between the seven of them, which would mean that he was perhaps carrying one seventh of that. One denarius would weigh ⅟84 of a libra, and his sack did not weigh more than twenty or twenty-eight pounds. That meant he might be carrying two and a half to three thousand denarii.
But where would that be?
There had to be some tried-and-true method, Uri supposed, and he marched on, completely immersed in his calculations. They were surely not making a futile trip in this, the 3,760th year anno mundi, from the creation of the world.
Up till then, the offering had always reached Jerusalem, for even when it was robbed, it was collected anew and delivered later. It had gone this way for ninety-eight years, since the first Jews landed up in Rome; a sacrifice was supposedly sent, in accordance with tradition, already in the first year, and that was surely true. It must have been a small sum, no more than a few hundred asses altogether, but it was saved at the expense of their stomachs, collected, and sent off. They themselves were unable to go: their ears were pierced and they lived their life in chains, but non-Jews could be persuaded to take it — for money. They paid and sent the money, and have every year since then. More and more, as things began to take a turn for the better for the Jews in Rome, and for a fair amount of time, they had been carrying the money themselves, with official permission.
By now they were walking over into the true Rome. Uri did not turn around to glance at the Jewish quarter on the far side, since all he would have seen anyway was fuzzy blotches.
At the Circus Maximus they swung southward. These were all familiar streets; Uri would never have imagined the day would come that he would pass that way in such an official capacity.
They tramped silently, like people who were on an important mission.
They left Rome by the Porta Capena. Wagons laden with produce were by then already creaking their way in toward the markets.
They came to a halt at the beginning of the Appian Way, at the Jewish house of prayer near the cemetery.
“Let’s take a rest,” Matthew said. “Anyone who wants breakfast may eat.”